Walking Sharks and the Great Zebra vs. Leopard Shark Debate with Dr. Chris Dudgeon

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Welcome back to another exciting episode of the Beyond Jaws Podcast.

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On the podcast today, we have Dr.

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Chris Dudgeon from Australia talking about walking sharks, talking about zebra and leopard
sharks, and which is the right name to use.

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We're going to talk all about that on today's episode.

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Let's start the show.

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Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the Beyond Jaws Podcast.

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I'm your co-host Andrew Lewin with my other co-host, Dr.

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David Ebert.

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Dave, you're calling from the mountains today, and we're talking to somebody in Australia
on a Sunday night after the World Cup.

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As this is recorded, obviously this will be put up after.

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~ very exciting World Cup, very exciting interview talking about beyond the World Cup and
talking about walking sharks and talking about a number of different

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sharks, including the very controversial leopard or zebra shark, which one do we

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call it?

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~ but yeah, I think it's gonna be a fun interview for people to get along.

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You've known Chris for quite some time.

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~ do you want to say something before we get into this interview?

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No, I think I had not seen as I mentioned, I just seen Chris at the Sharks International
in May and hadn't seen her for several years and I thought, oh this should be a great one

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to have on the podcast.

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And then coincidentally, after I invited her on the podcast, found out she had a shark
named after her.

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And so what

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a coincidence.

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And ~ it was great.

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We had Jess Blakeway on last week.

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And if you haven't caught that one, you have to catch that episode.

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And she'll give you all the insights if you're a grad student on how to butter up your
professor by naming a shark after her or him.

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And ~ but no, Chris was great today.

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I could have gone another half hour hour with her.

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And we'll definitely

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she'll be back for another follow up episode here at some point.

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But no, she was terrific and ~ really glad we had her on and let's why don't we start the
show here and we'll come back.

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All right, here's the interview with Dr.

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Chris Dudgeon.

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Enjoy and we'll talk to you after.

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Hey Chris, welcome to the Beyond Jaws podcast.

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Are you ready to talk about walking sharks?

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I am hi Andrew.

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All right.

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Well, welcome to the Beyond Jaws Podcast where today we have a phenomenal guest, the
amazing Doctor Christine Dudgeon.

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However, first we need to acknowledge Spain's win in the FIFA World Cup Soccer that just
concluded.

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And although you have an Australian, a Canadian, an American here, we all watched the
match and thoroughly enjoyed it.

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And Chris watched the match in the middle of her night in Australia, so she actually kinda
deserves the Iron Woman Award for making the podcast on limited sleep.

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So

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Chris is a senior researcher at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland,
Australia, and she's also at the Biopixel Ocean Foundation, where she investigates how

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biodiversity originates and is maintained through time.

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Chris's research examines the evolutionary process that drives the emergence of species
and populations alongside the ecological mechanisms that sustain them in modern

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ecosystems.

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By bridging the fundamental science with applied wildlife management, her work directly
informs conservation, recovery, and policy initiatives.

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Chris works across

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a wide range of marine organisms, including corals, ~ seabirds, fishes, and whales, and
particularly it focuses on chondrychthians, the sharks, the rays, and the chimeras, or go

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sharks as I like to call them.

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Her research has contributed to the discovery and description of new species of sharks and
bony fishes, advancing scientific understanding of marine biodiversity while highlighting

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the importance of taxonomy and conservation.

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Her PhD research focuses on the population ecology of the Indo-Pacific leopard sharks.

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Most most which most of us call zebra sharks, ~ providing critical insights into their
movements, patterns, demography, and conservation needs.

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She's a foundational member of the world's first rewilding program, the StAR program,
which is stegostoma tigram, the scientific name, augmentation recovery, which delivered

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under the Global Reese Shark Initiative.

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and focused on the recovery of the species.

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Chris has been a member of the IUCN Shark Specialist Group since 2015

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And has served as a vice co-chair since 2021.

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In this role, she contributes to the Global Conservation Assessment, Strategic Plan
Planning and Policy Guidance for Sharks and Rays worldwide.

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Chris has over 75 peer-reviewed publications and has mentored 13 PhD students, four MSc
students, and 11 honor students.

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And one of her current students is Jess Blakeway, who was just on the podcast last week
and described a new species of walking shark after Chris.

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And she also has a BSC honors and she has her PhD from the University of Queensland.

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And Chris, welcome to the show.

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Thank you, Dave.

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Thanks for having me.

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Great.

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So well I ask you the question we always ask our first our guest is, how'd you get
interested in sharks and marine science?

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yeah, thank you.

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So ~ it's a funny one.

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I know lots of marine biologists that grew up inland.

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So I did my high school years in a place called Canberra, which ~ Americans may be
familiar with but it's our capital city and in Australia and they couldn't decide between

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Sydney or Melbourne.

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which are the big cities, so they put the capital in between, ~ in Canberra.

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So it's about two hours from the coast.

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~ And I used to spend a couple of weeks every summer down the coast of ~ southern New
South Wales, south of Sydney.

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And it was my favourite time of the year.

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I just love going to the ocean.

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It's a beautiful area, rocky

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headlands and you'd see things like the big ~ black stingrays, ~ southern stingrays that
would come in really close and you know lots of rock pools and activity.

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So I think that just sort of captured my imagination of wanting to do marine science.

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With sharks in particular, my earliest memory of them being on my radar was maybe 14, 15
and I saw an interview with a famous shark fisherman in Australia who had these sort of

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funny museums and he

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Basically justified killing big sharks by saying that because we killed a lot of the fish,
they didn't have food left, so we needed to then also remove them.

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~ and I don't think I even was familiar with the concept of sustainability at the time,
but I just thought there might be a better way of managing that situation, such as how

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about we leave them some fish to eat and then

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perhaps we can all have something.

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~ and so I think, yeah, I decided I wanted to learn more about it and perhaps be a voice
for them.

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Love it.

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So as you went through your schooling and everything, you got through high school, you're
still interested in marine science.

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You ended up going to James Cook University?

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Yes, I did.

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Yeah.

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And why that particular university?

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So at the time, so this is the nineties, last century, ~ at the time in Australia we

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had two main unis that were known for marine science.

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So James Cook is in Townsville in the tropics and has a strong focus on coral reefs.

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And the other university that was big for marine science was the University of Tasmania, ~
which ~ also has the Australian Antarctic Division ~ sort of connected to it.

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So that's cold water stuff.

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I am not a cold person, so this was really in many aspects just a pragmatic choice of that
I prefer being in warmer water.

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~ and so I chose to go to JCU.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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And was Colin Simpfendorfer there at the time, or is that before Colin?

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So no, I kind of was there in between Colin's times.

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So I think

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maybe when I turned up, ~ Colin's a little bit older than me, but I think

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maybe when I turned up he was still there as a postgrad.

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But

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~ I, you know, as a

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brand new undergrad, I wouldn't have had access to any post grads at that time.

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And then when I went through, when I got to postgrad, Colin had left.

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And

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so I was interested in doing work on sharks, but there wasn't anything available at JCU.

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So my honours was actually on parrotfish.

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And I worked I sort of was in the I guess the beginning stages of molecular ecology, which
was one of the fields

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I was interested in along with field biology and ecology.

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~

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So my honours project was the first time that mitochondrial DNA sequencing was used to
examine population genetics of reef fish in the Great Barrier Reef.

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So it was pretty early days.

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And I managed to sort of from that those skills I got a lot of jobs.

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So people kept employing me to work on different mainly coral and ~ reef fish projects.

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But I was very interested in studying sharks and there just really wasn't anything
happening.

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at JCU at that time, which is funny because of course it's really well known as a shark
research centre.

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So after I left, Colin ~ and Michelle Heupel came to JCU and set up their fish and
fisheries and Michelle had her aims at JCU ~ programs.

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So yeah, so I I kind of missed them but ~ you know

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Yeah, yeah,

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because when you were starting out in the nineties, there really wasn't there was John
Stevens and Peter Last, ~ down in but they were down in Hobart at the time and they were

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there with CSIRO.

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But they're really Yeah, the cold place.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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And ~ so there is and they're really I think it's probably people like a lot of the
younger people today don't realize that the the shark

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It was sort like in the US in the eighties and even into the nineties, there was just
shark research was not like it is today.

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There were not many institutions that were doing it really that much.

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It really came on a little more little well, probably people like yourselves when you got
into the 2000's and you started doing more work at the universities, you started having

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students, I think.

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Would that be a fair thing?

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when I was looking into PhDs, it was really ~ as you said, so the people that were driving
the shark research in Australia, ~ that you could probably count them on two hands.

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And most

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of them were associated with ~

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you know, government organizations like CSIRO or the State Fisheries ~ organization.

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So many of them were not just shark researchers, right?

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So they worked on lots of different programs and sharks were one of the things they got to
work on.

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I think John Stevens was a bit of an anomaly.

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I think he managed to just work mostly on sharks, but

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certainly you know the other main scientists driving things at that time.

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~ And then there was kind of this next ~ generation kind

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Coming through, which I guess was, you know, Colin, Michelle, Will White with a lot of the
taxonomy ~ stuff that was happening.

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And then we're kind of the next generation after that.

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~

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And so my contemporaries, we started really in the early 2000s and so other people I can
sort of point to from that time.

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So Pete Kine, Charlie Hoverniers, Simon Pierce, these are people I went through with,
Shannon Corrigan, ~ Lindsay Marshall, ~ Andrea Marshall.

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She was the we overlapped as well.

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at UQ ~ and you know several others so ~ and Cynthia Alrich we were just mentioning her as
well so yeah

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sorry Argentina lost ~ we'll

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commiserate with her later.

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And so actually what happened at that time was that we didn't have a society.

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And so and a lot of us were our supervisors were not necessarily shark biologists.

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So my primary supervisor was a marine mammal expert ~ working on dugongs.

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~ I know Charlie went through a marine mammal lab, so you know there was ~ or Tilios
specialists, etc.

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So it was

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You know, we didn't have a sort of a society dedicated to that.

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We would go to the Australian Society of Fish Biology conferences.

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But as the shark research was building, you'd basically spend the whole time at the
conference in the shark room.

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And so it was in ~ 2004 that ~ we actually ~ our mainly PhD cohort ~ coordinated to start
the Oceania Chondrict.

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society.

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So I'm a founding member of that along with Cynthia and Charlie and several others.

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So you know that was really and it was we had a critical mass of you know students really
starting to focus on chondrychthians to be able to make that happen.

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Mm.

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I yeah, I remember ~ at the 2005 Indo-Pacific, I think for a lot that was the first time I
met a number of you.

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I think it was the first time I think you and I met there at that conference there the
first time and I just remember a lot of people.

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Australian had a really good contingent of young people attending that conference at the
time.

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I obviously I knew Will and I knew ~ Pete Kyne at the time already.

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~ but like I said, a number of you showed up at that Indo-Pacific, which was a good
showing, really, looking back

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now on it at the time.

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~ at that point you'd kinda started formulating the whole had you had your first OCS
meeting at that time, Oceanicondricthy meeting?

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so I think that was the one in Taiwan.

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Is that the one you're talking about?

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Yeah.

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So

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that was 2004 And our first OCS ~ was 2005.

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Well, that's when we founded, yeah.

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So we

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to remember anyone's back in that that era there and stuff and yeah, and actually I was a
member there as you know for a number quite a few years there.

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It was kinda fun conference.

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It's just for me it's a long ways to go from California to Australia for a two-day
conference, but it's a lot of well fun.

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Plus I was also I was doing a lot of work with Will White at the time too, so I had a

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I had an excuse to be in Australia.

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~

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So anyway, did you see when you is the OCS is kind of really kinda helping pull a lot of
the Australian sort of sharky people together to kind of really start to build off the

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whole thing from that point on, as the OCS started to come together and everything that
that helped drive a lot of the shark

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I do think it's quite a cohesive network.

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~ and particularly I mean

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one of the things that we were really passionate about when we started it was that this
was a conference that was largely built or a society largely built by students for

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students.

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And so we've always made sure that the you know the conferences are really affordable,
lots of you know, support to get people there.

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~ and just and you know, ~ having that very sort of open, welcoming, you know, friendly
society.

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And I think that that's really held through.

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So there was a conference last year held at the Sunshine Coast, and that was celebrating
20 years since the founding of the conference, and it was really a lovely ~ conference to

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be a part of.

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Colin was celebrated ~ as a lifetime member achievement award.

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~ And so, you know, and I think ~

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just to to have the moment to, you know, really appreciate what he's done for Australian,
you know, Kondrichthian research and conservation is really important and I think he felt

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quite touched to, you know, be recognised by, you know, the next generations coming
through as well.

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~ you know, I think sometimes I mean we've all done it, but you know, as the younger ones
come through they kind of forget that there were people that paved the way, that

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Yeah.

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did some stuff before them.

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Like

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You know, they're inventing everything for the first time as you

211
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know, which is great energy, but sometimes we've got to stop and reflect and just
remember, you know, what people have done and I think it's a really, really nice society.

212
00:16:51,752 --> 00:16:59,947
I think it's a really supportive society and it gives opportunities for you know
progressing a lot of this work in Australia.

213
00:16:59,947 --> 00:17:02,809
And you know, it is regional, so it's not just Australia, it's

214
00:17:02,809 --> 00:17:05,871
New Zealand ~ and the Oceania.

215
00:17:05,871 --> 00:17:06,284
region.

216
00:17:06,284 --> 00:17:06,921
Yeah.

217
00:17:06,921 --> 00:17:15,044
Well backing up a little bit, when you were doing this, was this you started this was this
during your PhD when you guys were starting the OCS at that time?

218
00:17:15,044 --> 00:17:15,414
Okay.

219
00:17:15,414 --> 00:17:24,106
'Cause yeah, 'cause there's like I said, that kind of that sort of cohort of yours was
really sort of the first group that really started to get together sort of in mass as far

220
00:17:24,106 --> 00:17:26,727
as doing you know in mass as far as

221
00:17:26,727 --> 00:17:27,937
doing the research and stuff.

222
00:17:27,937 --> 00:17:34,609
So that was kind of pretty dynamic thing for you guys to being students like that and get
and starting up

223
00:17:34,967 --> 00:17:39,832
a shark society, how is that ~ kinda had that feel looking back on it now?

224
00:17:40,982 --> 00:17:42,003
so proud of it.

225
00:17:42,003 --> 00:17:56,699
Like it's such a wonderful thing to have been a part of and ~ you know to so I was honored
to be invited as a keynote last year for the 20 year ~ you know celebration and it was

226
00:17:56,699 --> 00:18:01,441
yeah really looking around it was the largest OCS that we've ever had.

227
00:18:01,441 --> 00:18:09,282
it was amazing to see you know how much it's grown and all the new generations coming
through.

228
00:18:09,282 --> 00:18:10,935
It was just fantastic.

229
00:18:10,935 --> 00:18:20,431
You know, there's so many fantastic new students and it's still it's really heavily
student driven, which is super important.

230
00:18:20,431 --> 00:18:26,315
Now, how are you navigating when you were coming through, like you said, you worked on
parrot fishes for your undergraduate, for your aunt honors and

231
00:18:26,315 --> 00:18:37,204
then and so when you went to do your PhD, how did you convince your advisor that you're
gonna work on zebra slash leopard sharks?

232
00:18:37,949 --> 00:18:43,101
~ well, I think like many of these things it's just very serendipitous timing.

233
00:18:43,101 --> 00:18:44,652
So ~

234
00:18:44,652 --> 00:18:58,318
so ~ my project was advertised on a notice board at UQ and so a friend of mine had moved
from Townsville to Brisbane to start his PhD.

235
00:18:58,318 --> 00:19:05,761
He worked on Humpback Whale Song and he saw this PhD advertised and ~ it was just sort of
quite

236
00:19:05,823 --> 00:19:08,594
general the ecology of leopard sharks.

237
00:19:08,614 --> 00:19:18,259
And what had happened was that there was a student based out of Brisbane where I am now
who had started doing some work and he tagged a couple of these animals.

238
00:19:18,259 --> 00:19:22,421
So we have them aggregate off our coast here every summer.

239
00:19:22,421 --> 00:19:26,783
So he put some fin tags in a couple of animals but he couldn't continue the work.

240
00:19:26,783 --> 00:19:35,660
And so my supervisor Janet Lanyon who her expertise is dugongs but she was supervising him
because at that time

241
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Again, there weren't any people who really ~ you know were working specifically on sharks.

242
00:19:41,325 --> 00:19:47,850
~ and so she thought the project was interesting and wanted somebody to continue it.

243
00:19:47,850 --> 00:19:51,883
So my friend told me about the project.

244
00:19:51,883 --> 00:19:58,378
I contacted her and she was just about to go on maternity leave, and I think she just
went, Yep, great, apply.

245
00:19:58,539 --> 00:19:58,819
And

246
00:19:58,819 --> 00:20:01,501
so ~

247
00:20:01,610 --> 00:20:06,208
And I just very quickly want to ~

248
00:20:06,295 --> 00:20:07,996
make a comment here too.

249
00:20:07,996 --> 00:20:14,148
So ~ a few weeks ago ~ Janet died ~ and it was quite abrupt.

250
00:20:15,209 --> 00:20:27,455
and I just wanted to kind of take a moment to, you know, just reflect on that she gave me
this opportunity and ~ as my mentor and it was really important ~ and so I'm you know

251
00:20:27,455 --> 00:20:29,836
super grateful to her ~ for that.

252
00:20:29,836 --> 00:20:36,299
~ and I think it's really important you know to know those things you know going forward.

253
00:20:36,299 --> 00:20:42,407
and pass that on, you know, to the next generation who wanting to do these things.

254
00:20:43,353 --> 00:20:55,219
And I came from ~ a lab background mostly, but I had been doing a fair bit of volunteer
work in the field because I wanted to be a field biologist as well.

255
00:20:55,219 --> 00:21:09,325
And so, you know, Janet supported that, but she also encouraged me to do genetics work
too, ~ which was great and I'm still doing it, so it was, you know, highly valuable.

256
00:21:09,325 --> 00:21:13,137
But yeah, it was a massive learning curve because I'd never seen one of these animals

257
00:21:13,137 --> 00:21:13,867
In the wild.

258
00:21:13,867 --> 00:21:18,591
~ I had no idea how we were going to do any of this.

259
00:21:18,591 --> 00:21:20,172
So we wanted to go out.

260
00:21:20,172 --> 00:21:24,805
~ Could we use photo ID to track them over time?

261
00:21:24,805 --> 00:21:27,056
You know, would the animals be there?

262
00:21:27,056 --> 00:21:29,217
How easy is it to approach them?

263
00:21:29,217 --> 00:21:31,940
How do we take tissue samples from them?

264
00:21:31,940 --> 00:21:41,266
How do we, ~ you know, attach ~ it was early days of acoustic tracking, so we were you
know attaching acoustic tags to them.

265
00:21:41,266 --> 00:21:43,090
~ Yeah, how do we?

266
00:21:43,090 --> 00:21:44,540
captured them, all of those things.

267
00:21:44,540 --> 00:21:48,061
So it was just massive learning curve.

268
00:21:48,061 --> 00:21:51,982
Janet was like, yeah, just go, figure it out, figure it out, go on, you know.

269
00:21:51,982 --> 00:21:54,463
~ and we did.

270
00:21:55,303 --> 00:21:59,491
So, you know, and yeah, spoiler alert, it worked.

271
00:21:59,491 --> 00:21:59,865
Yeah.

272
00:21:59,865 --> 00:22:00,705
So

273
00:22:01,485 --> 00:22:06,107
How'd she happen to suggest the zebra sharks or the leopard sharks for you?

274
00:22:07,001 --> 00:22:11,493
Well that so there was the student that had started some of that work.

275
00:22:11,493 --> 00:22:12,123
So they just

276
00:22:12,123 --> 00:22:16,155
done a little bit and that's how come that species had been flagged.

277
00:22:16,155 --> 00:22:25,510
So at that time there was another lab at the University of Queensland ~ that the head of
was Mike Bennett.

278
00:22:25,510 --> 00:22:31,853
And Mike Bennett was the PhD advisor for people like Pete Kyne, Andrea Marshall, Simon
Pierce.

279
00:22:31,853 --> 00:22:34,674
So that was sort of the Shark and Ray lab.

280
00:22:34,674 --> 00:22:37,315
And a lot of the work that was happening local.

281
00:22:37,315 --> 00:22:48,961
in Mike's lab was very fishing based and inside Morton Bay where this work meant for the
leopard sharks we needed to go on the outside so we needed to go across you know the

282
00:22:48,961 --> 00:23:01,388
breakers and into more the surf area and there wasn't really that happening so so I think
that was sort of pushing limits to take it further offshore and get into some more of the

283
00:23:01,388 --> 00:23:04,229
deeper, more exposed areas as well.

284
00:23:04,579 --> 00:23:15,166
I love your comment your prof Janet gave you about like, well, go figure it out yourself
because if the people listen to that podcast, when I started out in the early eighties, it

285
00:23:15,166 --> 00:23:17,727
was the exact situation you described in Australia.

286
00:23:17,727 --> 00:23:19,798
There was nothing going on in the States.

287
00:23:19,919 --> 00:23:28,204
And it was just like I remember Lisa Natanson and I showed up and a few others at Moss
Landing and Greg Kai was just like, Go figure it out, guys.

288
00:23:28,204 --> 00:23:28,904
Good luck.

289
00:23:28,904 --> 00:23:30,665
You know, it was there's no

290
00:23:30,925 --> 00:23:37,507
And you'll but you know you've like you probably I experienced this, you probably learned
a hell of a lot because there was no roadmap.

291
00:23:37,507 --> 00:23:38,937
It was like you had to go

292
00:23:38,937 --> 00:23:39,507
figure it out.

293
00:23:39,507 --> 00:23:45,509
And young people listening today, that's I can't stress that enough that, you know, people
like Chris and I have lived that.

294
00:23:45,509 --> 00:23:47,210
It's just go figure it out.

295
00:23:47,210 --> 00:23:56,192
Don't you know, you'll learn more, you'll be a much better scientist, researcher, figuring
it out in yourself than having your hand held for you.

296
00:23:56,192 --> 00:23:58,286
So ~ anyway.

297
00:23:58,286 --> 00:24:00,048
it's the fun stuff too, right?

298
00:24:00,048 --> 00:24:01,180
Because you

299
00:24:01,180 --> 00:24:08,183
you know, like it it's and and the other stuff I loved about it is it was ~

300
00:24:08,183 --> 00:24:09,814
sort of a blank slate project.

301
00:24:09,814 --> 00:24:20,119
So and this was really the first time, you know, this species had been studied and ~ you
said, you know, giving advice to next generation when people say, How do you become a

302
00:24:20,119 --> 00:24:21,339
world expert on something?

303
00:24:21,339 --> 00:24:23,600
I'm like, study something nobody's looked at.

304
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:24,841
It's quite easy.

305
00:24:24,841 --> 00:24:31,344
You know, if you go for manta rays or whale sharks or white sharks, it's a bit harder to
become, you know, the expert.

306
00:24:31,344 --> 00:24:35,006
Go for an obscure species nobody's bothered to look at yet.

307
00:24:35,006 --> 00:24:38,507
Then ~ yeah, you can skip a lot of that.

308
00:24:38,723 --> 00:24:39,577
groundwork.

309
00:24:39,577 --> 00:24:41,829
Yeah, that's exactly that's great.

310
00:24:41,829 --> 00:24:44,841
Yeah, that's the best advice I could say.

311
00:24:44,841 --> 00:24:49,304
So as you got along, you worked on the leopard sharks and you kinda advanced your career.

312
00:24:49,304 --> 00:24:59,991
Some of these of these projects you got into doing now, I'm kinda jumping forward a little
bit, but like the star project and some of the stuff you're doing now, the walking sharks.

313
00:24:59,991 --> 00:25:02,993
How did you get involved in some of those different projects?

314
00:25:03,909 --> 00:25:04,547
Yeah.

315
00:25:04,609 --> 00:25:11,732
So ~ I'll talk about the walking sharks because that's sort of chronologically the next
thing.

316
00:25:11,732 --> 00:25:16,174
So I actually started working on walking sharks in my PhD as well.

317
00:25:16,174 --> 00:25:16,865
So it wasn't

318
00:25:16,865 --> 00:25:19,756
part of my PhD but was a bit of a side quest.

319
00:25:19,756 --> 00:25:25,999
~ and this comes from me having worked on ~ Tilios beforehand.

320
00:25:25,999 --> 00:25:34,826
So ~ one of the people I'd worked with on a Gobi project, he'd been approached by Gerry
Allen.

321
00:25:34,826 --> 00:25:40,118
looking for someone to do the genetics on a potential new species description.

322
00:25:40,199 --> 00:25:48,022
And ~ I'm not sure how familiar everyone here is with Gerry Allen, but he's sort of one of
the world's foremost you know fish taxonomists.

323
00:25:48,022 --> 00:25:55,225
~ And in the Chondrichthian world he's the leading taxonomist for the walking sharks.

324
00:25:55,225 --> 00:26:02,659
And so over the last, you know, ~ sort of well fifteen years he's described five species.

325
00:26:02,659 --> 00:26:03,123
Yeah.

326
00:26:03,123 --> 00:26:04,305
He's somebody the young people

327
00:26:04,305 --> 00:26:06,308
should know who he is.

328
00:26:06,617 --> 00:26:13,274
Yeah, and as somebody working in the fish world, I was pretty excited to get to work with
Gerry Allen.

329
00:26:13,274 --> 00:26:14,095
So this is twenty

330
00:26:14,095 --> 00:26:14,586
years ago.

331
00:26:14,586 --> 00:26:21,664
So I mean he's now described over six hundred, something like six hundred species of Yeah,
it's extraordinary.

332
00:26:21,664 --> 00:26:26,059
And he's just an awesome person to work with, like, and he's really loved.

333
00:26:26,059 --> 00:26:28,399
He's eighty four and he's still going.

334
00:26:28,399 --> 00:26:28,767
Yeah.

335
00:26:28,767 --> 00:26:35,984
we're still describing new species, you know, other bony fish and he's still diving, he's
still doing it like he's, you know, just

336
00:26:35,984 --> 00:26:37,146
extraordinary, yeah.

337
00:26:37,146 --> 00:26:37,950
Yeah.

338
00:26:38,467 --> 00:26:45,132
and so when I'd been contacted ~ through Phil and about, you know, would I

339
00:26:45,475 --> 00:26:47,526
Be willing to sort of help Gerry out.

340
00:26:47,526 --> 00:26:49,146
I was like, yes, please.

341
00:26:49,367 --> 00:26:53,959
And so this was for two species of walking shark in eastern Indonesia.

342
00:26:53,959 --> 00:26:58,951
I wasn't on this paper, but I did the genetics work sort of as a volunteer.

343
00:26:58,951 --> 00:27:07,135
I was excited to be involved in some of the species description because I hadn't really
done that work at that time.

344
00:27:07,135 --> 00:27:15,699
And the co-author with Gerry was someone named Mark Erdmann, who I had not heard of, but
is now someone I work with very closely for.

345
00:27:15,699 --> 00:27:16,760
many many years.

346
00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:31,019
~ And ~ then a few years later Gerry got back in touch with me and asked me if I would
help with another walking shark species, which turned out to be ~ Hemicillium mycoli, the

347
00:27:31,019 --> 00:27:36,092
one that's the focus of Jess's PhD work ~ in Milne Bay.

348
00:27:36,193 --> 00:27:40,976
And so Gerry and I are the species authorities on that one.

349
00:27:40,976 --> 00:27:45,392
And then there was one more, Hemicillium Halmahera.

350
00:27:45,392 --> 00:27:46,542
a couple of years later.

351
00:27:46,542 --> 00:28:00,395
And then following on from that we did work on ~ sort of looking at the group as a whole,
sort of a synthesis of the whole ~ at that time nine species of walking sharks and and

352
00:28:00,395 --> 00:28:09,136
also some phylogenetic evolutionary work on the group and IUCN ~ red list assessment work
with them as well.

353
00:28:09,136 --> 00:28:12,517
~ And then really things started

354
00:28:13,571 --> 00:28:18,605
working up again when Jess came and approached me about wanting to do a PhD.

355
00:28:18,746 --> 00:28:23,069
So she'd been, ~ I presuming she's told her story.

356
00:28:23,069 --> 00:28:35,550
So she talked about she basically wanted to to work on this Mullen Bay species or
Hemocilium mycoli that she'd been doing some work on as a volunteer, ~ came to me as one

357
00:28:35,550 --> 00:28:40,924
of the species authorities wanting to work on it and then it sort of went from there.

358
00:28:41,933 --> 00:28:45,761
So I gotta ask the question, how does the field have a shark named after you?

359
00:28:46,834 --> 00:28:49,503
~ still quite surreal, I think.

360
00:28:49,503 --> 00:28:50,246
ha.

361
00:28:52,405 --> 00:28:55,272
It's yeah, amazing you

362
00:28:55,272 --> 00:29:00,068
when you like was it a surprise when she presented it to you or did you know this was
happening?

363
00:29:00,068 --> 00:29:06,277
so I guess the way the story goes, so when we found

364
00:29:07,245 --> 00:29:16,669
You know, when we went sort of caught the first one on this expedition, and then we
suspected, so Jess was the first person to recognize that it had a brand new pattern and

365
00:29:16,669 --> 00:29:20,511
that it was probably something different, but we only had one individual.

366
00:29:20,511 --> 00:29:25,884
~ and then over the next few days we caught this you know collectively another eleven.

367
00:29:25,884 --> 00:29:28,425
And at that time, Gerry was convinced.

368
00:29:28,425 --> 00:29:36,199
So Gerry was on the on the trip with us, and he was already convinced that this was a new
species, but the genetics still needed to be done.

369
00:29:36,199 --> 00:29:37,142
And in the past, that

370
00:29:37,142 --> 00:29:50,775
was my bit but I think they all went and conspired ~ Gerry, Mark and Jess and then
basically came back and went you're not working on this this is Jess's project and we're

371
00:29:50,775 --> 00:29:56,106
naming it after you and so I was pretty flawed at that point in time.

372
00:29:56,106 --> 00:29:57,736
~

373
00:29:58,056 --> 00:30:01,537
now it did take a year

374
00:30:01,743 --> 00:30:08,655
from then till ~ or over a year from that point in time to the actual publication
recently.

375
00:30:08,655 --> 00:30:13,016
~ and of course, you know, things could happen.

376
00:30:13,016 --> 00:30:21,579
So I wouldn't say I'm a glass half empty person, but I'm a skeptic until like something's
actually, you know, for real.

377
00:30:21,579 --> 00:30:23,839
I'm not gonna celebrate it until it's for real.

378
00:30:23,839 --> 00:30:26,080
So once that publication

379
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:29,011
came out I just went, oh my god, this is actually real now.

380
00:30:29,011 --> 00:30:30,180
So yeah.

381
00:30:30,180 --> 00:30:34,107
the picture of the fish like I get an illustration and get it up on your wall?

382
00:30:34,107 --> 00:30:38,234
~

383
00:30:39,135 --> 00:30:39,567
So

384
00:30:39,567 --> 00:30:40,426
Definitely.

385
00:30:40,426 --> 00:30:44,098
we asked Jess, people up her podcast was up last week.

386
00:30:44,098 --> 00:30:50,012
We asked her so and as young students listening to this like, if you really wanna butter
up your advisor, name a shark after them.

387
00:30:50,012 --> 00:30:52,933
~ So I'm sure

388
00:30:52,964 --> 00:30:54,294
you're gonna read that chapter a lot

389
00:30:54,294 --> 00:30:55,365
differently.

390
00:30:57,037 --> 00:31:01,702
Yeah, no, it's definitely a good way to keep them in favour, that's for sure.

391
00:31:01,702 --> 00:31:08,080
~ I'm not setting the bar for my other students, so like they don't need to freak out
about that.

392
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:09,311
It's okay.

393
00:31:11,715 --> 00:31:14,317
Other bribes will do, other bribes, yeah.

394
00:31:16,547 --> 00:31:17,741
Get creative.

395
00:31:18,127 --> 00:31:22,373
So did you just get the one new species in this one or was there more than one?

396
00:31:22,373 --> 00:31:26,087
~ yeah.

397
00:31:26,168 --> 00:31:27,479
Was it just the one?

398
00:31:29,525 --> 00:31:31,986
well, named after me or in general.

399
00:31:31,986 --> 00:31:35,788
So, I mean, obviously I could only have one hemicillium named after me.

400
00:31:35,788 --> 00:31:36,689
~

401
00:31:36,689 --> 00:31:42,671
but ~ so there was the one new species that has now been described.

402
00:31:42,671 --> 00:31:42,993
Yeah.

403
00:31:42,993 --> 00:31:47,616
There are likely more, but there's a bit of work that needs to be done.

404
00:31:47,616 --> 00:31:48,416
Yeah.

405
00:31:48,416 --> 00:31:49,221
So

406
00:31:49,221 --> 00:31:49,431
Well you

407
00:31:49,431 --> 00:31:58,081
could listen to the podcast, but Jess was, let's say, a little enthusiastic when she
showed you the different sharks and she had ~ expressed your reaction at the time.

408
00:31:58,081 --> 00:31:58,936
So

409
00:31:58,936 --> 00:31:59,588
Yeah.

410
00:31:59,588 --> 00:31:59,919
came out

411
00:31:59,919 --> 00:32:00,550
like well that's new.

412
00:32:00,550 --> 00:32:01,672
I haven't seen this one before.

413
00:32:01,672 --> 00:32:03,227
I haven't seen this one before.

414
00:32:03,227 --> 00:32:04,237
It was

415
00:32:04,999 --> 00:32:09,101
she expressed it a little more enthusiastically than Andrew did, let's put it that way.

416
00:32:09,101 --> 00:32:10,162
So but

417
00:32:10,162 --> 00:32:12,973
go listen to the podcast and if people

418
00:32:13,234 --> 00:32:14,464
if you didn't listen to it already, catch

419
00:32:14,464 --> 00:32:14,560
it.

420
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:17,686
It was pretty funny, ~ the way she explained it.

421
00:32:18,046 --> 00:32:22,593
the interesting thing, and you've been to obviously you've been to Papua New Guinea ~
several times

422
00:32:22,593 --> 00:32:23,209
and stuff.

423
00:32:23,209 --> 00:32:30,583
And I've got to say that that's a group that fascinates me just 'cause of I've never
worked on at all, but just because you

424
00:32:30,991 --> 00:32:42,938
And we talked to Jess about this, like you have such a high endemism in such a small area
when you've been looking at this stuff kinda what do you what's your sort of thoughts or

425
00:32:42,938 --> 00:32:44,439
opinions on the whole

426
00:32:45,325 --> 00:32:48,237
Yeah, this has been a complete

427
00:32:48,939 --> 00:32:52,571
I think my mind's been a bit blown with what's happening here.

428
00:32:52,571 --> 00:33:06,397
So we when we started the expedition work a couple of years ago and we were doing the
expedition along the southern ~ island sort of chain that goes all the way out to the

429
00:33:06,397 --> 00:33:07,238
east.

430
00:33:07,238 --> 00:33:17,722
And I think Jess would have explained that how ~ we sort of went from looking for the
Milne Bay one and then we got to this next wonderfully named place, Panopompom, and then

431
00:33:17,722 --> 00:33:18,853
all of a sudden

432
00:33:18,853 --> 00:33:28,339
We're seeing a different species, the Port Moresby one, and then we're getting to a next
place, and we're sort of seeing this mosaic distribution of these species that was

433
00:33:28,339 --> 00:33:30,210
completely unexpected.

434
00:33:31,031 --> 00:33:35,494
and that first gap, that's a really deep channel.

435
00:33:35,494 --> 00:33:37,355
So that's a thing called the Jamin Channel.

436
00:33:37,355 --> 00:33:48,553
If you look at like any of those shipping maps, you can see ~ that's like the main
shipping channel that boats leave from Australia and go north through PNG to head sort of

437
00:33:48,553 --> 00:33:48,796
past.

438
00:33:48,796 --> 00:33:50,737
Singapore and keep going up that way.

439
00:33:50,737 --> 00:33:56,428
~ But then we're seeing these other things.

440
00:33:56,428 --> 00:33:57,660
There's nothing obvious.

441
00:33:57,660 --> 00:34:07,705
There's just nothing obvious about what ~ if you look back in the tectonic history or you
know any of the current barriers, why would that be a species break?

442
00:34:07,705 --> 00:34:13,668
~ And particularly with this new species, you know, that it's

443
00:34:15,513 --> 00:34:25,948
unclear where that boundary is and therefore ~ you know what is really you know keeping
those things apart ~ which I find absolutely fascinating.

444
00:34:25,948 --> 00:34:36,323
~ and also particularly with these animals because they only differ visually in body
pattern, you know, are there other things that we're missing?

445
00:34:36,323 --> 00:34:43,136
You know, are we seeing the body pattern of a particular species but in fact it's
something else.

446
00:34:44,467 --> 00:34:45,387
and also

447
00:34:45,387 --> 00:34:46,928
potential hybrid zones.

448
00:34:46,928 --> 00:34:49,890
So we don't know if they do this or not.

449
00:34:49,890 --> 00:34:59,236
And Northern Australia is also really interesting for this because we have this nice
continuum up through the Great Barrier Reef through the Torres Strait into Papua New

450
00:34:59,236 --> 00:34:59,637
Guinea.

451
00:34:59,637 --> 00:35:12,835
So these are our neighbours and we share ~ species across those borders and particularly
with Hemicilium, we don't really know where the Great Barrier Reef one ends and the Port

452
00:35:12,835 --> 00:35:14,026
Moresby one starts.

453
00:35:14,026 --> 00:35:15,567
So that's an area

454
00:35:15,567 --> 00:35:19,730
Of interest that we really want to go ~ exploring further.

455
00:35:20,731 --> 00:35:29,867
Biggest challenge really, they do sort of co-occur with saltwater crocodiles, so that's
our you know, we're

456
00:35:29,867 --> 00:35:37,082
starting to look at some eDNA methods and things to try and perhaps get around those
limitations.

457
00:35:37,082 --> 00:35:45,187
~ I have to say it's possibly my least favourite bit of that field work is the feeling of
swimming around.

458
00:35:45,187 --> 00:35:52,755
at night time with the you know in what theoretically could be saltwater crocodile
territory.

459
00:35:52,755 --> 00:35:53,695
Yeah.

460
00:35:55,338 --> 00:35:57,680
Yes, yeah, she's good at spotting them.

461
00:35:57,680 --> 00:35:58,553
That's right.

462
00:35:58,553 --> 00:36:07,313
Yeah, yeah, she was just on the podcast here and we ~ talked a lot about 'cause I was out
I went out on a trip with her in the saltwater crocodiles there.

463
00:36:07,313 --> 00:36:14,497
~ and I was gonna ask Jess that question about 'cause you guys she said you guys were
going out, she's talking about we're just going around diving at night, you know, or

464
00:36:14,497 --> 00:36:15,271
picking up these things.

465
00:36:15,271 --> 00:36:16,502
And I'm thinking like,

466
00:36:16,502 --> 00:36:19,443
Man, are there some saltwater crocodiles an issue there?

467
00:36:19,443 --> 00:36:21,784
And ~

468
00:36:22,285 --> 00:36:23,369
Yeah, I mean I well

469
00:36:23,369 --> 00:36:26,971
and I know Julia doesn't really go in the water as much, right?

470
00:36:26,971 --> 00:36:29,952
So she does more fishing based, yeah, sense but

471
00:36:29,952 --> 00:36:34,484
Northern Australia is particularly crazy with numbers of saltwater crocodiles.

472
00:36:34,484 --> 00:36:39,887
I think in Papua New Guinea they've removed a lot of them, particularly like near the
villages and things.

473
00:36:39,887 --> 00:36:52,913
But the very first ~ village we went to when we did the very first expedition and so one
of the things I love about Jess's work is that when we go to a new village we

474
00:36:53,063 --> 00:36:55,435
talk savvy with the village to begin with.

475
00:36:55,435 --> 00:37:03,812
So we'll go we get permission to come on, meet with the elders and get their permission
and you know, and often the villagers will

476
00:37:04,573 --> 00:37:08,195
basically help us to look for the animals and tell us where they are.

477
00:37:08,195 --> 00:37:16,113
~ and then ~ the first place we went to and and so I asked, okay, so what about the
crocodiles, which they're called puck book?

478
00:37:16,113 --> 00:37:18,099
And my so what about the puckpook?

479
00:37:18,099 --> 00:37:20,120
And they're like, no, it's not a problem.

480
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:23,233
They're only it's only a problem if they're hungry.

481
00:37:23,233 --> 00:37:23,528
And

482
00:37:23,528 --> 00:37:24,282
Ha.

483
00:37:24,282 --> 00:37:26,082
how do we know?

484
00:37:26,583 --> 00:37:29,134
Like has anyone interviewed them recently?

485
00:37:29,134 --> 00:37:32,173
So yes.

486
00:37:32,853 --> 00:37:36,627
After that I was always a bit dubious, but ~ yeah.

487
00:37:36,627 --> 00:37:38,047
Well let me ask you this.

488
00:37:38,047 --> 00:37:50,733
Like is it you know, saltwater crocodiles having these ~ you know leopard sharks or zebra
sharks that are around who might be a little more difficult to find.

489
00:37:50,733 --> 00:37:54,645
Would saltwater crocs be a predator of these sharks?

490
00:37:54,645 --> 00:37:58,547
And is that could be why you don't see them as often in Northern Australia?

491
00:37:58,547 --> 00:38:00,338
Because there are more?

492
00:38:00,338 --> 00:38:12,464
~ yeah, so this is the more the walking shark thing, but but the zebra slash leopard
sharks are found in these similar areas as well, like sort of distribution-wise, but tend

493
00:38:12,464 --> 00:38:13,884
to be a bit deeper.

494
00:38:13,884 --> 00:38:17,826
~ I don't think they're a target species for saltwater crocodiles.

495
00:38:17,826 --> 00:38:20,327
So ~ they're just a bit more cryptic.

496
00:38:20,327 --> 00:38:25,029
So because during the day they tend to be hiding.

497
00:38:25,029 --> 00:38:25,459
During

498
00:38:25,459 --> 00:38:29,351
night, so often we do work at night because the walking sharks

499
00:38:29,351 --> 00:38:34,002
come out at night time and then and we can catch them walking as well.

500
00:38:34,002 --> 00:38:43,104
So if it's a really low tide and you can just walk on the reflat, you can pick them up out
of tidal pools and things, which is sort of the easiest way to get them, but you can

501
00:38:43,104 --> 00:38:44,854
snorkel or dive.

502
00:38:45,154 --> 00:38:50,505
We do find them during the day, but you usually have to look right in under ledges and
things like that.

503
00:38:50,505 --> 00:38:56,997
So ~ it's more their cryptic nature than I would say ~ the predation.

504
00:38:56,997 --> 00:38:57,817
Yeah.

505
00:38:58,065 --> 00:39:00,617
I assume the water's pretty clear where you guys are diving?

506
00:39:01,185 --> 00:39:03,895
No, not always.

507
00:39:05,512 --> 00:39:06,814
Dear God.

508
00:39:07,910 --> 00:39:09,103
now you're really talking

509
00:39:09,103 --> 00:39:12,365
these things they're in mangroves, they're in seagrass,

510
00:39:12,365 --> 00:39:18,039
they're in coral reef, we're you know, so we're starting at shore through so yeah.

511
00:39:18,039 --> 00:39:26,984
I mean we're not diving in super turbid water, but we are you know, nighttime you only see
the torch.

512
00:39:26,984 --> 00:39:27,581
Yeah.

513
00:39:27,581 --> 00:39:28,061
Okay.

514
00:39:28,061 --> 00:39:29,122
So that's not well

515
00:39:29,122 --> 00:39:39,706
the only thing I asked, you I took Julia and I talked about that and I've talked to her
we're in Timor Lesty, which is close by, and man, you want to talk about crocodiles?

516
00:39:39,706 --> 00:39:40,747
Holy smokes.

517
00:39:40,747 --> 00:39:44,809
There are thousands and thousands of crocodiles there.

518
00:39:44,809 --> 00:39:46,149
They're everywhere.

519
00:39:46,149 --> 00:39:47,089
You just they're

520
00:39:47,089 --> 00:39:47,600
everywhere there.

521
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:48,470
So I

522
00:39:48,540 --> 00:39:55,101
meant to ask ~ Jess that, but she was just like, oh yeah, then we go diving here and we'll
catch them here and

523
00:39:55,863 --> 00:39:59,853
I guess this point in your career you can just bring a lot of grad students with you and

524
00:39:59,953 --> 00:40:03,891
you know, they're l let let go let

525
00:40:03,891 --> 00:40:06,244
literally let go test the waters for ya.

526
00:40:06,282 --> 00:40:07,192
Ha ha.

527
00:40:07,683 --> 00:40:10,801
Well, I do also work with some quite fearless people.

528
00:40:10,801 --> 00:40:13,908
So Mark Erdmann I don't think has fear.

529
00:40:13,908 --> 00:40:17,596
~ and ~ so just talking about

530
00:40:17,643 --> 00:40:18,744
low visibility.

531
00:40:18,744 --> 00:40:28,418
So with the StAR project, if we talk about that, we've been doing some more work off
Australia on the Indo-Pacific leopard sharks to inform their biology and ecology.

532
00:40:28,418 --> 00:40:35,361
And the first time Mark came out with me, there'd been some big rains on the east coast.

533
00:40:35,361 --> 00:40:37,842
So the water was so dirty.

534
00:40:37,842 --> 00:40:44,686
~ and we're diving offshore so sometimes it can be beautiful clear 20 meter visibility.

535
00:40:44,686 --> 00:40:47,247
This day it was you couldn't see your hand.

536
00:40:49,288 --> 00:40:52,230
And I said to Mark, there's no point going in.

537
00:40:52,230 --> 00:40:53,891
And he went, we'll go in.

538
00:40:53,891 --> 00:40:56,653
And I'm like, there's no point coming in.

539
00:40:56,653 --> 00:41:03,978
And so, you know, we've jumped, we've gone in, like, we've hit the bottom of the reef in
six metres before we can see anything.

540
00:41:03,978 --> 00:41:06,780
And I just turned to him and went, no, we're leaving now.

541
00:41:06,780 --> 00:41:11,043
And ~ this is bull shark territory, you know, so and

542
00:41:11,043 --> 00:41:15,356
I just went, no self-respecting leopard shark is going to be in these conditions.

543
00:41:15,356 --> 00:41:16,506
So, you know,

544
00:41:16,506 --> 00:41:17,477
even if we swim around.

545
00:41:17,477 --> 00:41:19,749
around looking for them, we're not gonna find one.

546
00:41:19,749 --> 00:41:23,752
They will have moved off into nicer, deeper, clearer water.

547
00:41:23,752 --> 00:41:26,375
~ and I'm not staying in this water.

548
00:41:26,375 --> 00:41:33,465
So yeah, so but he was quite willing to, you know, keep searching in these conditions and
I just went, no.

549
00:41:33,465 --> 00:41:41,888
Yeah, I mean that's kinda dumb sorts of it's like 'cause those I've seen those bull sharks
when it's clear, those kind of stay back.

550
00:41:41,888 --> 00:41:43,158
But man, you get that

551
00:41:43,158 --> 00:41:46,389
visibility goes down, they just start coming right in.

552
00:41:46,389 --> 00:41:46,957
They're just

553
00:41:46,957 --> 00:41:47,250
Yeah.

554
00:41:47,250 --> 00:41:48,520
they get real.

555
00:41:48,590 --> 00:41:55,292
Just their behavior just changes becoming from kind of very much staring away to just
becoming just fearless.

556
00:41:55,292 --> 00:41:57,653
~ you know.

557
00:41:59,188 --> 00:42:04,476
you know, it's their ~ prime conditions is when the visibility is poor.

558
00:42:04,476 --> 00:42:08,422
So, you know, but as you said, in clearer water, not a problem at all.

559
00:42:08,422 --> 00:42:10,574
Like they come anywhere near you.

560
00:42:10,574 --> 00:42:11,385
So

561
00:42:11,385 --> 00:42:13,438
Those are the conditions I'll go out in.

562
00:42:13,438 --> 00:42:13,917
Yeah.

563
00:42:13,917 --> 00:42:14,357
yeah, I know.

564
00:42:14,357 --> 00:42:14,548
Well

565
00:42:14,548 --> 00:42:18,640
sp well I mean why go in the water too if you know they're not gonna be there at all.

566
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:20,682
They'll be there and stuff.

567
00:42:20,682 --> 00:42:31,049
So do you have any I'm kinda curious I wanna hear a little more about the if there's
anything else for the walking sharks you wanted to add when we talk about your reshark

568
00:42:31,049 --> 00:42:32,109
project?

569
00:42:33,113 --> 00:42:38,300
~ yeah we can ~ pivot to ReShark.

570
00:42:39,683 --> 00:42:40,464
Give the leopards

571
00:42:40,464 --> 00:42:41,472
some love.

572
00:42:41,472 --> 00:42:42,318
Yeah.

573
00:42:43,927 --> 00:42:46,088
Yeah, Leopard, Zebra, whatever.

574
00:42:46,088 --> 00:42:47,242
Anyway.

575
00:42:47,242 --> 00:42:48,914
You say Leopard, I say Zebra.

576
00:42:48,914 --> 00:42:49,844
Anyway.

577
00:42:50,065 --> 00:42:50,786
Let's go.

578
00:42:50,786 --> 00:42:51,267
Let's go.

579
00:42:51,267 --> 00:42:53,188
You call it you get

580
00:42:53,834 --> 00:42:56,399
would you like me to explain the difference?

581
00:42:57,175 --> 00:42:58,328
Sure, why don't you why should you?

582
00:42:58,328 --> 00:42:58,591
Yeah,

583
00:42:58,591 --> 00:42:59,325
for the

584
00:43:00,367 --> 00:43:10,881
Just to clarify, so I suppose you know you have in America on the west coast a leopard
shark, yeah?

585
00:43:10,881 --> 00:43:13,112
That's found off California and Mexico.

586
00:43:13,112 --> 00:43:14,522
And

587
00:43:14,643 --> 00:43:18,244
and that's your dogfish ~ species.

588
00:43:18,244 --> 00:43:19,724
And so

589
00:43:19,860 --> 00:43:21,426
That's not a dogfish.

590
00:43:21,426 --> 00:43:23,370
Dogfish is a separate thing.

591
00:43:23,370 --> 00:43:24,419
Ha ha ha.

592
00:43:25,871 --> 00:43:26,603
Tri it's

593
00:43:26,603 --> 00:43:27,506
a triacid.

594
00:43:27,506 --> 00:43:30,423
What's the common a hound shark?

595
00:43:30,423 --> 00:43:31,544
shark, yes.

596
00:43:31,544 --> 00:43:31,944
Alright,

597
00:43:31,944 --> 00:43:34,855
so see all the common names there going in there.

598
00:43:34,855 --> 00:43:35,325
Sorry,

599
00:43:35,325 --> 00:43:37,756
I shall not call it a dogfish, hound shark.

600
00:43:37,756 --> 00:43:38,591
So

601
00:43:38,591 --> 00:43:39,186
you.

602
00:43:39,186 --> 00:43:45,628
completely not yeah, so completely different order ~ from the Indo-Pacific leopard shark.

603
00:43:45,628 --> 00:43:52,591
And so ~ the reason that it's called a zebra shark, ~ actually I should go back and
explain.

604
00:43:52,591 --> 00:43:57,062
So that species, the triacus is only found

605
00:43:57,432 --> 00:44:00,586
in the eastern Pacific on that coastline of California

606
00:44:00,586 --> 00:44:01,787
down to Mexico.

607
00:44:01,787 --> 00:44:09,266
So the Indo-Pacific leopard sharks found in the West Pacific all through the Indian Ocean
and in subtropical and tropical locations.

608
00:44:09,266 --> 00:44:12,620
So they don't co-occur in the wild.

609
00:44:12,620 --> 00:44:12,950
And the

610
00:44:12,950 --> 00:44:15,643
only place that they co-occur is in aquariums.

611
00:44:15,643 --> 00:44:16,144
And I think

612
00:44:16,144 --> 00:44:17,405
that's where

613
00:44:17,483 --> 00:44:21,095
needing two different common names came to play.

614
00:44:21,136 --> 00:44:31,004
And so leopard sharks, ~ the Indo-Pacific leopard sharks breed quite well in aquariums,
which is part of the StAR project where we get to that.

615
00:44:31,004 --> 00:44:32,759
~

616
00:44:32,759 --> 00:44:37,613
And they lay eggs, they have the largest eggs of the egg laying sharks.

617
00:44:37,613 --> 00:44:43,017
And the pups hatch out at about twenty sort of to thirty centimetres in length.

618
00:44:43,017 --> 00:44:45,059
And when they hatch out they're stripy.

619
00:44:45,059 --> 00:44:47,481
And that's where the zebra name comes from.

620
00:44:47,481 --> 00:44:53,537
And then they undergo this massive transformation, arguably the biggest transformation of
any

621
00:44:53,537 --> 00:44:56,598
shark species between juvenile to adult form.

622
00:44:56,599 --> 00:44:59,900
And when they become adults, they are spotty.

623
00:44:59,900 --> 00:45:04,042
And so the juvenile stage is not for very long.

624
00:45:04,042 --> 00:45:09,424
So they start losing their stripes, you know, within weeks to months really.

625
00:45:09,905 --> 00:45:14,327
So it's very, very rare to see a stripy one in the wild.

626
00:45:14,327 --> 00:45:17,528
But more common to see the adult spotting form.

627
00:45:17,528 --> 00:45:23,491
So where you do see these animals in the wild, say here off Australia, off Thailand,
elsewhere,

628
00:45:23,521 --> 00:45:26,032
they're called leopard sharks because they're spotty.

629
00:45:26,032 --> 00:45:27,893
~

630
00:45:28,273 --> 00:45:30,564
and we don't have the other leopard sharks.

631
00:45:30,564 --> 00:45:32,395
So that's why we have

632
00:45:32,395 --> 00:45:36,857
two species called leopard shark and it is confusing.

633
00:45:36,857 --> 00:45:45,063
Well, I always grew up with calling them zebra sharks, but you are right, the adult form,
once they start to grow and they get the spots, they're more like a leopard shark would be

634
00:45:45,063 --> 00:45:46,905
a better appropriate name.

635
00:45:46,905 --> 00:45:52,848
But I think I was telling Jess that the juvenile form had been described as a different
species.

636
00:45:53,369 --> 00:45:53,930
And I think

637
00:45:53,930 --> 00:46:03,857
and that's where I'm guessing partly the whole zebra shark thing, 'cause like you just
stated, they have stripes like a zebra.

638
00:46:03,927 --> 00:46:04,617
And so,

639
00:46:04,617 --> 00:46:08,419
~ but I'd always grown up hearing called zebra sharks.

640
00:46:08,479 --> 00:46:10,460
And ~ so

641
00:46:11,250 --> 00:46:16,162
when I was going overseas Australians are calling them ~ leopard sharks.

642
00:46:16,162 --> 00:46:17,263
It's like, what do you calling these?

643
00:46:17,263 --> 00:46:18,443
I know what a leopard shark is.

644
00:46:18,443 --> 00:46:22,259
Anyway, we're getting too much off in the weeds, but it's a good back good to know.

645
00:46:22,259 --> 00:46:23,059
you know, here

646
00:46:23,059 --> 00:46:28,023
if I go and talk to a local, they wouldn't have a clue what I'm talking about if I
mentioned a zebra shark.

647
00:46:28,624 --> 00:46:31,496
That doesn't Yeah.

648
00:46:31,496 --> 00:46:35,929
They're very one's an eastern Pacific and the other one's Indo-Pacific species.

649
00:46:35,929 --> 00:46:37,701
But anyway, they're both pretty sharks,

650
00:46:37,701 --> 00:46:38,069
so

651
00:46:38,069 --> 00:46:45,795
something that's interesting, as someone who doesn't have as much of a background as the
two of you, I just looked it up on Google and said, you know, like difference between

652
00:46:45,795 --> 00:46:47,877
zebra shark and leopard shark.

653
00:46:47,877 --> 00:46:51,199
And it actually calls the Indo-Pacific zebra shark.

654
00:46:51,710 --> 00:46:52,670
but it has two different

655
00:46:52,670 --> 00:46:53,391
species though.

656
00:46:53,391 --> 00:46:58,225
So I don't know if it says commonly called zebra sharks in the US, leopard sharks in
Australia.

657
00:46:58,225 --> 00:47:01,167
So this is stegostoma fasciatum.

658
00:47:01,167 --> 00:47:02,788
Is that the one we're talking about?

659
00:47:03,359 --> 00:47:07,128
you wanna take that one Yeah.

660
00:47:07,571 --> 00:47:08,242
Yeah.

661
00:47:08,242 --> 00:47:08,776
Okay.

662
00:47:08,776 --> 00:47:09,656
it's the same.

663
00:47:09,656 --> 00:47:16,419
But it's the only species in its family, so it's actually not like a difficult one
taxonomically.

664
00:47:16,419 --> 00:47:17,039
It's just

665
00:47:17,039 --> 00:47:25,946
that ~ back in 2018 there was a Danish research group that were ~ describing a

666
00:47:25,946 --> 00:47:27,727
What they call the sandy morph.

667
00:47:27,727 --> 00:47:34,410
So the more regular morph is a yellowy brown with brown spots.

668
00:47:34,410 --> 00:47:40,533
And then in the Indian Ocean, more so, you also get this sandy morph, which it's almost
grey.

669
00:47:40,533 --> 00:47:45,715
And it looks like the sort of colouring of a nurse shark, ~

670
00:47:45,715 --> 00:47:49,127
rather than having that sort of brown with the spots.

671
00:47:49,127 --> 00:47:51,778
And so and the juvenile start off differently too.

672
00:47:51,778 --> 00:47:55,832
They're really finely striped, almost like reticulations rather

673
00:47:55,832 --> 00:48:01,817
than the bold stripes of the more normal or regular morph, if you call it.

674
00:48:01,817 --> 00:48:03,379
~

675
00:48:03,379 --> 00:48:06,161
And so this Danish group were

676
00:48:07,470 --> 00:48:18,975
describing those pattern changes and then as they were doing that work they looked at some
of the genetics to check that it wasn't a different species but it's just a different

677
00:48:18,975 --> 00:48:26,959
morph like we have in manta rays you've got the chevron and the white-bellied dominant
morphs.

678
00:48:26,959 --> 00:48:37,484
~ and so it's not a different species ~ but as they were doing that work they realized
that the nomenclature was incorrect.

679
00:48:37,484 --> 00:48:47,653
And so they were digging into the historical records of the naming and found that there
was a valid name that predated Stegostoma fasciatum.

680
00:48:47,653 --> 00:48:51,517
~ And then this turns out to be Stegostoma tigrinum.

681
00:48:51,517 --> 00:49:00,965
So even though it's not going to be confused with anything else, ~ it still changed
because of the rules of nomenclature.

682
00:49:02,372 --> 00:49:02,923
Yeah.

683
00:49:02,923 --> 00:49:15,453
And just on the common name idea, ~ I was joking around with ~ Steve Kessel, who I work
with on the StAR Project as well with the common names 'cause he's based in America, so we

684
00:49:15,453 --> 00:49:23,839
have those discussions and I said, Well, maybe we could call that Sandy Morphous snow
leopard shark and then ~

685
00:49:24,460 --> 00:49:27,152
and then here off Brisbane our

686
00:49:27,152 --> 00:49:34,969
populations are often very ornate, like they have quite ~ almost more Jaguar patterns.

687
00:49:34,969 --> 00:49:38,182
And I said, so maybe we could call these ones the Jaguar shark.

688
00:49:38,182 --> 00:49:40,765
And ~ that's a shout out to Steve Zisu.

689
00:49:40,765 --> 00:49:43,147
And I thought, you know, that's not out there yet.

690
00:49:43,147 --> 00:49:47,200
So we could fix the whole nomenclature thing by doing this, but

691
00:49:47,301 --> 00:49:51,295
that would require quite a movement to change common name, I

692
00:49:51,295 --> 00:49:51,933
think.

693
00:49:51,933 --> 00:49:52,784
yeah, yeah.

694
00:49:52,784 --> 00:49:54,334
Well yeah, yeah.

695
00:49:54,334 --> 00:49:55,595
Yeah.

696
00:49:55,595 --> 00:49:56,714
Well I

697
00:49:56,714 --> 00:49:57,696
think what

698
00:49:57,696 --> 00:50:08,206
I think I shared this with you, but when I was in Madagascar, the locals there, the
fishermen, when you show pictures of like the blue spotted bamboo shark there, which is

699
00:50:08,820 --> 00:50:18,724
chylosillium, but it's in the same family, different genus, they all think you're talking
about ~ the leopard shark, the stegostoma.

700
00:50:18,825 --> 00:50:19,545
And but

701
00:50:19,545 --> 00:50:21,806
The small ones 'cause they all the what they see is the spots.

702
00:50:21,806 --> 00:50:26,520
Even though the spots are bluish on the bamboo shark and they're brownish in that one.

703
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:30,333
'Cause what the tip off was they would say, oh we see these all the time.

704
00:50:30,533 --> 00:50:31,444
And then I said, really?

705
00:50:31,444 --> 00:50:31,869
What is it?

706
00:50:31,869 --> 00:50:36,348
Oh yeah, they grow like two and a half to three meters and I'm like, That's not the bamboo
shark.

707
00:50:36,348 --> 00:50:37,929
They're like sixty centimeters

708
00:50:37,929 --> 00:50:39,040
maybe max.

709
00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:45,765
~ but there was the small ones are are mistaken for the bamboo sharks in Madagascar

710
00:50:45,765 --> 00:50:46,393
and the

711
00:50:46,393 --> 00:50:52,636
Blue spotted bamboo shark, if you follow my social media, it's endemic just to Madagascar
and it's only been

712
00:50:52,636 --> 00:50:56,439
up until recently it only been seen one time in the last hundred and twenty years.

713
00:50:56,439 --> 00:50:57,872
So it's kind of ~

714
00:50:57,872 --> 00:50:58,840
Yeah, amazing.

715
00:50:58,840 --> 00:50:59,620
Yeah.

716
00:50:59,620 --> 00:51:07,965
But I think it's 'cause people are mistaking for the zebra leopard shark thing there.

717
00:51:07,965 --> 00:51:12,927
So anyway, do you want to talk a little bit about the re shark?

718
00:51:12,927 --> 00:51:16,139
What's the whole point or purpose of it?

719
00:51:16,670 --> 00:51:30,356
~ the sort of the backstory to that was after my PhD for my postdoc I wanted to find out
more about ~ the species in ~ tropical locations.

720
00:51:30,356 --> 00:51:36,559
And so where I'm based it's a bit more towards the edge of the distribution for the
species, so they're quite seasonal.

721
00:51:36,559 --> 00:51:45,123
~ you see movements with relation to different water temperatures and I was wondering well
what happens when your water temperature doesn't really change?

722
00:51:45,123 --> 00:51:46,964
You know, how does that impact

723
00:51:47,337 --> 00:52:02,259
migratory movements and so I managed to sort of make contact with a dive shop in Thailand
in the Phi Phi Islands and so we set up this photo ID project called Spot the Leopard

724
00:52:02,259 --> 00:52:02,629
Shark.

725
00:52:02,629 --> 00:52:13,077
~ And the idea being let's tap into the dive tourism industry and start collecting you
know data on when the sharks are there.

726
00:52:13,077 --> 00:52:16,370
~ And so that was great.

727
00:52:16,370 --> 00:52:17,581
We did that for a few years.

728
00:52:17,581 --> 00:52:27,868
~ and then the Phi Phi Islands are on the western side of Thailand, and then I went across
to the Gulf of Thailand, and some colleagues were saying, oh don't worry about coming

729
00:52:27,868 --> 00:52:29,809
here, there's no leopard sharks here.

730
00:52:29,809 --> 00:52:38,295
And I thought, but there should be because this is actually a place where people would go
and dive with them, and there's a massive dive tourism industry.

731
00:52:38,295 --> 00:52:46,380
So at that time, pre-COVID, ~ they were certifying about a hundred thousand divers a year
in the Gulf.

732
00:52:46,380 --> 00:52:48,353
Of Thailand, like

733
00:52:48,965 --> 00:52:50,989
massive dive tourism industry.

734
00:52:50,989 --> 00:52:54,436
And so that flagged that.

735
00:52:54,436 --> 00:52:58,728
You know, this species has basically disappeared from these waters.

736
00:52:58,728 --> 00:53:08,052
And you know, I'd heard of the sort of shifting baselines concept with fishing, but not so
much with the diving tourism industry.

737
00:53:08,052 --> 00:53:16,957
And so because it's such a huge turnover, anybody who had been there for sort of less than
seven or eight years had not seen these animals.

738
00:53:16,957 --> 00:53:21,899
But if you talk to the older people that have been there for a while, they used to see
them regularly.

739
00:53:21,899 --> 00:53:24,390
~ and there was some data.

740
00:53:24,390 --> 00:53:29,363
That was had been collected separate to what I was doing that supported that.

741
00:53:29,363 --> 00:53:46,275
~ And around that time in 2015, we were ~ reassessing stegastoma for the IUC and Red List,
and I reached out to Mark Erdmann, ~ and he and Gerry had been doing extensive ~ fish

742
00:53:46,275 --> 00:53:50,617
biodiversity surveys all through Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

743
00:53:50,638 --> 00:53:54,302
And so, you know, tens of thousands, well, thousands.

744
00:53:54,302 --> 00:54:04,510
Into tens of thousands of dives throughout these areas and asked him, you know, what do
you know about what data do you have on these, you know, that we can go back in time and

745
00:54:04,510 --> 00:54:07,863
see ~ what was happening before?

746
00:54:07,863 --> 00:54:14,798
And so the same story came out, and you know, which was basically happening in front of
people's eyes that these animals were disappearing.

747
00:54:14,798 --> 00:54:19,392
They used to be there, they were regularly observed, they weren't anymore.

748
00:54:20,093 --> 00:54:24,186
there's not so much fishing data on them because they're not a particularly

749
00:54:24,186 --> 00:54:36,722
common species either so you don't have any targeted fishing or you know so it's very
sporadic in fish markets but what we would find is that there'd be a pulse ~ of animals in

750
00:54:36,722 --> 00:54:40,344
a fish market where you would see like dozens.

751
00:54:40,344 --> 00:54:52,309
~ And you know we have one of the largest healthiest populations here in Southeast
Queensland ~ and our population estimates are in you know the hundreds to few thousands.

752
00:54:52,309 --> 00:54:54,230
So when you're seeing you know

753
00:54:54,230 --> 00:55:01,456
those sorts of catches in one place, that's potentially quite a lot of a population and
particularly of breeding adults.

754
00:55:01,456 --> 00:55:14,408
~ And we also now just with the photo ID because we can match them as adults, we've now
matched several animals for over 20 years in the wild coming back every year.

755
00:55:14,408 --> 00:55:18,732
So they seem to have this sort of site fidelity to particular locations.

756
00:55:18,732 --> 00:55:20,733
~ And so

757
00:55:22,346 --> 00:55:34,550
From these conversations with Mark, he'd also been working with aquarium folks on
different projects and noticed that they at that time Singapore Aquarium had a lot of pups

758
00:55:34,550 --> 00:55:39,851
and they were sort of asking the question, well, can we release them into the wild?

759
00:55:40,551 --> 00:55:49,614
and so you know, this was sort of the concept ~ where ~ StAR Project started, where we
started thinking about, well

760
00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:51,091
How would that work?

761
00:55:51,091 --> 00:55:54,472
You know, what would be needed to do something like that?

762
00:55:54,472 --> 00:56:00,515
What would we need to know about these animals, about where we're releasing them, you
know, how would you go about it, etc.

763
00:56:00,515 --> 00:56:14,101
And so we sort of discussed this, ~ you know, sort of started digging into it for a few
years, and then ~ in 2019 the project got some interest from some big aquariums in the US,

764
00:56:14,101 --> 00:56:19,984
so the Shedd Aquarium, Georgia Aquarium, Seattle Aquarium came on

765
00:56:19,984 --> 00:56:29,876
board and others and so there was a big ~ meeting to be held about you know is this
something that you know we can do?

766
00:56:29,876 --> 00:56:43,209
Is it something we should do ~ and because this is a species that is in aquariums around
the world and it also breeds quite well in aquariums around the world and there's been

767
00:56:43,209 --> 00:56:48,670
quite a big shift in terrestrial you know in zoos into

768
00:56:49,046 --> 00:57:00,091
more you know sort of active conservation efforts of of rewilding but not so much in the
aquarium space and particularly not with you know elasmobranx.

769
00:57:00,491 --> 00:57:12,717
and so there was a lot of interest in this species particularly as kind of a model species
because it's an egg layer ~ and some of the logistics about shipping eggs as opposed to

770
00:57:12,717 --> 00:57:14,598
shipping wild animals around the world.

771
00:57:14,598 --> 00:57:19,100
~ And so yeah basically all of these

772
00:57:19,100 --> 00:57:28,786
different partners signed on ~ to do this project and we got the green light from the IUCN
Shark Specialist Group as well.

773
00:57:29,487 --> 00:57:39,844
And so the idea was to run this under what's known as the IUCN One Plan approach, which is
a combination of bringing together the expertise of those of us that work with these

774
00:57:39,844 --> 00:57:45,738
animals in the wild with the expertise of those that work with them in the aquarium
settings.

775
00:57:45,738 --> 00:57:49,181
And you know then ~ basically

776
00:57:49,181 --> 00:57:53,185
started from there and that was five years ago that it kicked off.

777
00:57:53,185 --> 00:57:53,627
Yeah.

778
00:57:53,627 --> 00:57:57,778
any results or anything or any feel for how it's going?

779
00:57:58,642 --> 00:58:09,467
Yeah, so so far ~ we've now so ~ it's a very big collaboration so there's a lot of
different ~ partners involved.

780
00:58:09,467 --> 00:58:21,133
So the first project was set up in eastern Indonesia in Raja Ampat, ~ and so this was
supported by a couple of foundations that have associated resorts there.

781
00:58:21,133 --> 00:58:23,574
So they actually built hatcheries.

782
00:58:23,574 --> 00:58:27,495
So ~ and we have these Indonesian

783
00:58:28,456 --> 00:58:32,760
conservation groups that manage all of that and we work closely with.

784
00:58:32,821 --> 00:58:40,686
So Nesha Cheetah is our Indonesian program manager who's an amazing young conservationist
who just is a ~

785
00:58:40,686 --> 00:58:45,428
Yeah, incredible energy and effort ~ in wrangling all of this.

786
00:58:47,619 --> 00:58:55,773
And then we have what we call the shark nannies and basically or the aquas, so their job
is to raise these baby sharks.

787
00:58:55,773 --> 00:58:58,014
So they get them as eggs and then raise them up.

788
00:58:58,014 --> 00:59:10,840
~ and so they start to learn to eat live food immediately after hatching and then they go
into C pens ~ at a certain stage and then once they reach about

789
00:59:11,321 --> 00:59:16,066
sort of five to six months of age and are large enough.

790
00:59:16,066 --> 00:59:20,891
They have an acoustic tag implanted ~ and then we release them.

791
00:59:20,891 --> 00:59:27,416
And so we're now over 75 animals have been released and this is in Raja Ampat.

792
00:59:27,726 --> 00:59:41,653
We also have another project started in Thailand ~ and ~ with WildAid and our manager
there is a lady named May and again amazing ~ local Thai team that are driving all of

793
00:59:41,653 --> 00:59:42,473
that.

794
00:59:42,773 --> 00:59:55,119
They haven't released as many so far, but they've had ~ I think it's seven released and
we've now been starting to get hits back from animals sort of I think Thailand was four

795
00:59:55,119 --> 00:59:57,652
months later and Indonesia was eight months later.

796
00:59:57,652 --> 00:59:58,152
later.

797
00:59:58,152 --> 01:00:05,159
~ And so it's still early stages as far as you know tracking these animals in the wild.

798
01:00:05,159 --> 01:00:08,923
We're seeing that success, we're seeing that survival.

799
01:00:08,923 --> 01:00:16,371
~ We also have some really important I guess additional conservation measures.

800
01:00:16,371 --> 01:00:20,034
In Thailand the species has been fully protected.

801
01:00:20,594 --> 01:00:27,476
So the government is very invested in the project and we're quite quick to move for
protection.

802
01:00:27,476 --> 01:00:29,897
In Indonesia, it's in process.

803
01:00:30,417 --> 01:00:36,959
The area is a marine protected area, but there is still ~ artisanal fishing in Indonesia.

804
01:00:37,319 --> 01:00:46,942
However, we're getting more and more reports of when fishes are catching these, you know,
because they do come across these leopard sharks occasionally, they're releasing them.

805
01:00:48,295 --> 01:01:03,826
and ~ the local school groups or local communities as well of children ~ provide a lot of
the food for the baby leopard sharks and so you know there's a lot of stewardship for this

806
01:01:03,826 --> 01:01:13,252
species and really you know trying to shift that narrative about you know the importance
of these types of animals in you know the environment.

807
01:01:13,252 --> 01:01:16,150
~ and so yeah they're

808
01:01:16,150 --> 01:01:28,614
because they are quite acute shark species, particularly as babies, you know, they're a
lovely I guess entry shark, if you will, you know, to bring people on board to, you know,

809
01:01:28,614 --> 01:01:34,916
understand that not all sharks are, you know, bitey and dangerous and Yeah.

810
01:01:34,916 --> 01:01:40,370
And that there's, you know, value in these animals beyond ~ just fishing.

811
01:01:40,370 --> 01:01:43,357
~ and so yeah.

812
01:01:43,357 --> 01:01:44,098
Yeah.

813
01:01:44,098 --> 01:01:48,573
Well well Chris, this this has been super exciting and very informative what you've been
talking about.

814
01:01:48,573 --> 01:01:57,833
I I wanna ask you, what advice would you have for a young person just starting out
considering a career in marine biology or in the shark world?

815
01:02:00,127 --> 01:02:04,600
yeah, so I think firstly

816
01:02:04,846 --> 01:02:06,527
you know, you've gotta love what you do.

817
01:02:06,527 --> 01:02:12,169
And I think you need to feel inspired to get up and do things because it's not always
easy.

818
01:02:12,169 --> 01:02:18,823
~ I think from the outside my path looks probably quite linear but it doesn't feel like
that at all.

819
01:02:18,823 --> 01:02:34,790
~ because I feel like you know, as I mentioned I've worked on lots of different animals
and different types of projects and so one of my supervisors once said, you know,

820
01:02:34,790 --> 01:02:39,470
It's about one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.

821
01:02:39,470 --> 01:02:41,452
And I kind of feel that

822
01:02:42,016 --> 01:02:44,367
there's a lot of truth to that.

823
01:02:45,048 --> 01:02:49,049
and I think, you know, there's no one path.

824
01:02:49,049 --> 01:02:52,431
Like you have to forge your own path and follow your passions.

825
01:02:52,431 --> 01:03:02,536
And ~ one of the things that I've probably talked to my students ad nauseum about is that
apart from being a scientist, I'm also a mother.

826
01:03:02,536 --> 01:03:09,099
So I have a nineteen and a seventeen year old kids and so that's been a massive part of my
life.

827
01:03:09,099 --> 01:03:09,749
~ I had

828
01:03:09,749 --> 01:03:11,860
my children doing my PhD.

829
01:03:11,860 --> 01:03:16,353
And ~ you know, and I see and that's not easy.

830
01:03:16,353 --> 01:03:19,815
That's not easy to combine that with

831
01:03:19,815 --> 01:03:20,005
and a

832
01:03:20,005 --> 01:03:22,832
half full time jobs separately.

833
01:03:23,495 --> 01:03:23,995
Yeah.

834
01:03:23,995 --> 01:03:24,396
And

835
01:03:24,396 --> 01:03:27,958
and you know, but it's possible, right?

836
01:03:27,958 --> 01:03:28,728
And so

837
01:03:28,728 --> 01:03:31,760
it's just finding your own path to make that happen.

838
01:03:31,760 --> 01:03:34,942
And you don't know what life's gonna throw at you.

839
01:03:34,942 --> 01:03:39,646
So follow your passions and yeah, and just keep trying.

840
01:03:39,646 --> 01:03:40,495
Yeah.

841
01:03:40,495 --> 01:03:41,316
Great.

842
01:03:41,316 --> 01:03:43,965
Well Chris, thank you so much for coming on.

843
01:03:43,965 --> 01:03:49,252
We're definitely gonna have you back 'cause I feel like we just barely scratched the
surface of your career and everything.

844
01:03:49,252 --> 01:03:49,692
And so

845
01:03:49,692 --> 01:03:51,373
we'll definitely have you come back.

846
01:03:51,373 --> 01:03:54,156
We'll talk about some other parts, aspects of your career.

847
01:03:54,156 --> 01:04:00,530
But thank you so much for coming on today and congratulations on your new namesake, Bamboo
Shark.

848
01:04:00,551 --> 01:04:02,272
And ~ anyway,

849
01:04:02,272 --> 01:04:03,613
thank you very much.

850
01:04:04,592 --> 01:04:05,950
Thank you so much.

851
01:04:06,784 --> 01:04:10,295
Thank you, Chris, for joining us on today's episode of the Beyond Jaws Podcast.

852
01:04:10,295 --> 01:04:12,126
Dave, what an interview.

853
01:04:12,126 --> 01:04:20,598
Lots of stuff going on in research, not only in Australia, but Papua New Guinea, around
walking sharks, around a lot of different other sharks.

854
01:04:20,598 --> 01:04:22,338
Her coral reef research we talked about.

855
01:04:22,338 --> 01:04:24,309
~ quite a lot of stuff.

856
01:04:24,309 --> 01:04:34,952
I think it's interesting how as someone's career progresses and they've been in the career
for 20 plus years, you start to ~ you know

857
01:04:35,584 --> 01:04:40,371
go into different areas and really discover things as you get more and more research.

858
01:04:40,371 --> 01:04:43,942
I feel like, you know, Chris is definitely an example of that.

859
01:04:43,942 --> 01:04:45,984
And yeah, she has a very broad background.

860
01:04:45,984 --> 01:04:55,031
You know, we talked a little about it but we really just didn't really get into some of
the other stuff she's done on coral reefs and fishes and seabirds and you know, she has

861
01:04:55,031 --> 01:05:01,931
quite a lot and I think ~ quite a broad background, I think you know, something she didn't
mention, but if you're a young person starting out

862
01:05:01,931 --> 01:05:05,445
That broad background's gonna help you from a job standpoint, having a lot of

863
01:05:05,445 --> 01:05:09,309
having a broader background and having a lot of skills.

864
01:05:09,370 --> 01:05:19,286
And she had it was interesting to hearing her also talk a bit a little bit about how the
when she started out she was in kind of in that sort of first wave of young Australians.

865
01:05:19,286 --> 01:05:19,873
Yeah.

866
01:05:19,873 --> 01:05:25,804
that came around in the early two thousands and is very similar to how the US was twenty
years earlier.

867
01:05:25,804 --> 01:05:30,806
I talk about the Jaws generation in the US and stuff.

868
01:05:30,806 --> 01:05:32,707
When we started out there was just nothing there.

869
01:05:32,707 --> 01:05:36,988
And her comment about from a professor and like, well, go figure it out.

870
01:05:36,988 --> 01:05:40,949
That's pretty much what all of us had to do is like, well let's go figure

871
01:05:40,949 --> 01:05:41,859
it out.

872
01:05:41,859 --> 01:05:49,451
And ~ in here Australia sort of came again it's hard for younger people to understand
this, but even through the nineties you had

873
01:05:49,452 --> 01:05:56,125
John Stevens, Peter Last, and kind of at the end, beginning of 2000, Will White kind of
came on the scene.

874
01:05:56,466 --> 01:06:04,950
but it was just a Colin Simpfendorfer, Michelle Heupel, but it was just a handful of
people really in the 90s that kind of came on the scene in Australia.

875
01:06:04,950 --> 01:06:10,173
But they laid the foundation for the generation that Chris talked about with her, Charlie

876
01:06:10,173 --> 01:06:13,595
Huvenairs who's been on the show, Pete Kyne ~

877
01:06:13,595 --> 01:06:17,377
a lot of and a few people, several other people that have been on the show, some that

878
01:06:17,377 --> 01:06:23,369
We haven't had on the show yet, but ~ Andrea Marshall she mentioned, Lindsay Marshall,
these are all cohorts.

879
01:06:23,369 --> 01:06:31,827
It was interesting hearing talk about how they started the whole Oceano Chondrichthin
Society, which is a yeah.

880
01:06:31,827 --> 01:06:32,263
that.

881
01:06:32,263 --> 01:06:41,047
No, I yeah, no, I knew she was one of the first founders down there to was involved in
early on, but it was kind of cool hearing some of the story, even though I'd been a member

882
01:06:41,047 --> 01:06:44,248
I think I joined in two thousand eight and I was a member for

883
01:06:45,049 --> 01:06:46,411
probably close to what

884
01:06:46,411 --> 01:06:48,643
almost fifteen, twenty years so after that.

885
01:06:48,643 --> 01:06:50,343
So it's kind of

886
01:06:50,343 --> 01:06:56,219
kinda neat here and Karen here the parallel between Australia and contrasting with the US
and everything.

887
01:06:56,219 --> 01:07:04,301
And as I say, she you know, of course the other part of it she got into talking about
diving with the crocodiles and ~ Papua New Guinea.

888
01:07:04,301 --> 01:07:05,386
It's one those things

889
01:07:05,969 --> 01:07:07,779
in North America you don't think about.

890
01:07:07,779 --> 01:07:08,509
I mean

891
01:07:08,860 --> 01:07:13,824
if you're in Florida you do have American crocodiles and you do have alligators

892
01:07:13,824 --> 01:07:15,645
to keep an eye on a bit.

893
01:07:15,937 --> 01:07:25,460
And I but I've been down in like Florida and stuff and you gotta watch but man, with the
saltwater croc, you're more in the menu with those guys, man.

894
01:07:25,460 --> 01:07:26,900
They're like ~

895
01:07:26,900 --> 01:07:28,871
and you're also in remote areas too.

896
01:07:28,871 --> 01:07:34,211
A lot of areas that they don't have there's not signs posted like keep an eye out for
crocs.

897
01:07:34,211 --> 01:07:37,103
It's just understood, like for a lot of people who live there.

898
01:07:37,103 --> 01:07:44,745
Well, like she said, they talk to the villagers, you know, and they kinda and I like your
comment about like, you know, well

899
01:07:44,998 --> 01:07:47,242
as long as they're not hungry, you're okay.

900
01:07:49,934 --> 01:07:50,975
Exactly.

901
01:07:50,975 --> 01:07:51,785
Exactly.

902
01:07:51,785 --> 01:07:54,617
Yeah.

903
01:07:55,958 --> 01:07:56,799
And lots

904
01:07:56,799 --> 01:07:57,309
of gems.

905
01:07:57,309 --> 01:08:01,632
Like lots of cool things that she's been able to accomplish and lots of things that

906
01:08:01,632 --> 01:08:02,623
we were able to cover.

907
01:08:02,623 --> 01:08:10,138
And I think that's something that's really important and a lot of fun too, you know, to be
able to document and stuff like that.

908
01:08:10,138 --> 01:08:11,769
So it's always fun.

909
01:08:11,769 --> 01:08:15,652
We'll put ~ all of her social media links in

910
01:08:15,937 --> 01:08:19,718
the show notes and of course with ours, Dave, if people want to get a hold of you, what
could they do?

911
01:08:19,899 --> 01:08:26,555
It's ~ Lost Shark Guy on ~ Instagram and also go to the YouTube channel Lost Shark Guy.

912
01:08:26,555 --> 01:08:33,341
Check out our series that Andrew and I are doing with Denisse Sotomayor on the searching
for lost sharks, extinct or alive.

913
01:08:33,341 --> 01:08:38,365
We got the first five episodes are up right now and there'll be a lot more coming very
soon.

914
01:08:38,494 --> 01:08:39,334
Awesome, perfect.

915
01:08:39,334 --> 01:08:47,898
And then yeah, and if you want to get a hold of us, Beyond Jaws on YouTube, also look at
for Beyond Jaws Pod on Instagram.

916
01:08:47,898 --> 01:08:51,790
And of course, you can just ~ search for us on our different socials.

917
01:08:51,790 --> 01:08:53,371
So thank you so much for joining us.

918
01:08:53,371 --> 01:08:56,562
We really do appreciate thank you to Dr.

919
01:08:56,562 --> 01:08:59,673
Chris Dudgeon and thank you to of course my co-host Dave.

920
01:08:59,673 --> 01:09:01,734
Thank you very much for everybody else who are listening.

921
01:09:01,734 --> 01:09:06,132
We really do appreciate you listening to us each and every time we release an episode.

922
01:09:06,132 --> 01:09:07,023
And have a great day.

923
01:09:07,023 --> 01:09:09,587
This has been another episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast.

924
01:09:09,587 --> 01:09:12,220
We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.